One of the things I really love about Quezon City is that it has green spaces and forests, though not as many as we’d like them to be. I posted about our trip to La Mesa Nature Reserve a few years ago, but La Mesa Ecopark also deserves love and attention.
To get to La Mesa Ecopark, you have to go through East Fairview Subdivision. I spent a lot of time in the neighborhood when I was in high school, when the park did not yet exist as I know it and there was no entrance gate that I could see; the park was rehabilitated in 1999 and reopened in 2004. I visited the park many times over the years to go for a walk in the forest, go birding (this was where we saw the mangrove blue flycatcher, Philippine tailorbird, and much more), walk our dogs, and just generally be one with nature.
The park has trails, a pond where people could go fishing, swimming areas, picnic spaces, an amphitheater, and it even had a butterfly garden and a lagoon near the parking areas where you could go boating. At some point, the lagoon stopped operating and eventually became covered with plants, creating a nice habitat and feeding ground for birds. It was just a lovely, accessible green space. These days, La Mesa Ecopark is run by MWSS after the ABS-CBN Foundation turned over management duties in 2024.
Here’s a video I made many years ago featuring La Mesa Ecopark before the pandemic.
For some time, you needed to fill up a registration form and make an appointment to visit La Mesa Ecopark, but management has since relaxed that requirement and it’s now open to everyone again. It’s been so long since we’ve been there that it might be time at last to visit.
